Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-06-13

dence. and if you combine with the present the
reality of the past, what an immense multitude
of souls you will have Ten thousand millions
who have heard and believed the church: ten
thousand millions of hearts that nave loved the
church; ten Thousand millions of wills that
have obeyed the church, and that observe well
in the full blaze of gospel light and liberty.
But the Catholic Church. so magniGcenilv
sketehed in the centuries of her duration ap-
pears not less magnificent in the immcnsity of
her sphere. The whole earth Is her sphere.
What Il rGvishing spectacle here presents Itself
TO our view Looking down the vista of the
Chureh's long centuries We behold more than
ten thousand millions of souls gathered from
the four quarters Of the globe. ont of q 4 nations
and from all ranks, and all nouIished by the
same divine word un:tei by the same divine
charity and subject TO the same divine author
ity. such is the vast communion of souls, the
millions and thousands of millions OF members
who form the numerical strength, the herar-
chical beauty and historical life of the holy
Catholic Church. Looking down from the
throne of her triple glory she SAYS Behold me
present actual living the great fact of history
and of the age. Having looked at and admired
the gigantic proportions and magnificent archi-
lecture of the Church Of Christ, we will now
consider the prodigy of her resistance and sta
biIity.
In the light of heaven, and under the shining
sun of all history, ask you, what is there in
common between those dead religions in the
faf-of Eastern Hemisphere and the
strengthening amid all the attacks,
all the commissions, all the cataclysms
of this earth, ever changing ever agitated; this
earth, eonvulsed by political, social and re-
hglous upheayals; this earth, invaded, sacked
deluged and redeluged by the bloody waves of a
thousand battle-tields; this earth literally piled
up with the ruins of fallen governments and
the dead bodies of countless nations and gen
erations2 Count, if you can all the institutions
of this world that have been established dis
established and re-established around the ever
living and everidentical Church of Rome
Consider how many thrones, even the most
nrniy established and best defended have
fallen around that throne, ever ancient, ever
new, ever weak and ever indestructible-
throne of Peter and his successors Count the
dynasties that have risen and fallen since the
establishment of the immortal DYNASTY of the
Popes-a dynasty which, as the ages have null
tipiied. has sent forth its roots into the soil of
the Old and New Worlds, producing that great
tree by which Christ prefgured the growth
strength and indeStTuctibility of His church
Behold this daughter Of heaven as she pu-sues
her journey through the troubled sphere of
thiswoFld; through schism and heresy rational
ism and ealumny, despotism and tyranny pro-
scriptiOn and Ostraeism; through royal, con
sulgr and imperial jealousies: through legisla-
tive Jrickery. demagogic and revolutionary per-
secation-and, amid all these bitter trfbula-
IioDs, always calm, always resolutc, alyays vie
toriocs- Oh, what miracle of power and sta-
altty But this Is not all another and still
more wonderful prodigy presents itself to oar
Yiew-namely, the power and efficiency of the
church Woe to those who have eyes and see
not; who, blinded by sophistry, errcr prejudice
anc passion, cannot see, much less admire ths.
incompatible work OF the church sfaoncst
men. This WORK is twofold-iEterfor and
exterior. But hoE shall l tell yeu, in
a single discourse, the interior, my. te, ions
work, which the Church has accaar6ishe5 II,
the dea.ns of the human souis. AS the moist
ure, which causes the seed, hidden in the bosom
% the earth, 10 gerninate, grow and fruetify 81
| does the Church operate, in silence divine In
the human heart; silence which 6 poet